Ioannis Benardos, Briand coffee table (STUDENT 2025)

Student:

Tertiary

Name of school or tertiary institution, name of woodworking teacher (if you have one), and name of photographer:

Sturt School for Wood, Peter Young, Ashley Mackevicius

Country

Australia

This coffee table fuses the clean precision of mid-century modernism with the restless energy of 1980s graffiti art. Crafted primarily from silky oak, its tapered legs and rectilinear frame showcase the timber’s shimmering medullary rays while reflecting the balanced geometry of post-war design—efficient, orderly, and democratic. Hints of graffiti’s rebellious spirit appear in subtler ways. An asymmetrically placed drawer—fronted in striking Macassar ebony—and the open negative space beneath the top introduce visual tension, recalling the layered unpredictability of street murals. The warm grain of silky oak evokes weathered urban surfaces—once vibrant with paint, now softened by time. Instead of adopting graffiti’s bold colour palette, the piece distils its deeper ethos: layered meaning, rhythmic composition, and a quiet undercurrent of defiance woven into the calm of a domestic setting. More than a surface for magazines, this table becomes a conversation—between structure and spontaneity, tradition and disruption, the refined and the raw.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.